In the last year, Chicago food lovers have pegged Hyde Park as the next restaurant hotspot, the next West Loop, carrying with it the connotation that it’s a dining neighborhood on the rise. With Tuesday’s news of Mike Sheerin joining the fray, little doubt remains: Hyde Park is the place to eat.

And even though Sheerin’s new project, a dumpling house called Packed, won’t until until late summer, his entry into the neighborhood further validates Hyde Park as a fine dining hub now. It’s not everyday a new restaurant is helmed by a chef whose resume include stops at wd~50, Blackbird and Cicchetti.

As for Packed, the restaurant will be more compact than his previous ventures: a 50-seat, 1,600 square foot space at 1321 E. 57th Street.

“I grew up in restaurants that were small, 60-seaters. I can do the (big, sprawling) restaurants well, but for me, it’s more about finding a product that is really delicious,” said Sheerin, named a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2010. “For me, this is going to...

Tanya Baker of The Boarding House, and Johnny Clark/Beverly Kim of Parachute, are among the finalists at the 2015 James Beard Foundation Awards.

Tanya Baker of The Boarding House, and Johnny Clark/Beverly Kim of Parachute, are among the finalists at the 2015 James Beard Foundation Awards. (Abel Uribe/Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune)

This year’s James Beard Foundation Awards, the 25th edition of the “Food Oscars,” aren’t just notable for Chicagoans because of the local representation of nominees. For the first time, the gala is being held outside the Big Apple, at Chicago’s Civic Opera House on May 4.

And the chances of seeing winning Chicagoans on stage that night? Good.

Ten local names are on the list of finalists in the restaurant and chef awards categories. Many of the nominees are repeats from previous years, but several notable newcomers made the cut.

Among those are Parachute, the Avondale restaurant among the seven nationwide nominated for best new restaurant. The Korean-with-American-techniques restaurant is helmed by wife-and-husband chefs Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark.

Another newcomer is Tanya Baker, executive chef of The Boarding House, who is among six under the age of 30 nominated for rising star chef of the year. Last year, Jimmy Bannos Jr. of The Purple Pig was a co-winner in this category.

Some of the better egg rolls this purebred Asian sampled happened at, of all places, a Senegalese restaurant in Bronzeville called Yassa. What's more beguiling is that when I dipped those thin, lacy packages into the accompanying amber condiment, it tasted of the funky, full frontal umami richness that could only be nuoc mam: It was Vietnamese fish sauce!

Cultural crossbreeding via geopolitics can produce unexpected culinary mutts (see Japanese-Peruvian, Portuguese-Indian). During the 1930s, a number of Senegalese served with the French army in Vietnam (both are former colonies of France). Some soldiers returned with new Vietnamese brides. All these years later that hybrid culture endures, and in its most recognizable form, an African take on the nem ran egg roll.

The Vietnamese name nem stuck around in Senegalese kitchens. Awa Gueye, the genial chef and co-owner of Yassa, told me nem is quintessential party food, as ubiquitous in her homeland as Buffalo wings in America. Yassa's egg...

Yes, you read it right, Mr. Erudite Food Man thinks Sarpino’s offers a pizza worthy of your time. I was never a big fan of the chain, but one pie, on a proverbial dark and stormy night, changed my thinking. There was a snowstorm, and with the fridge empty, we opted for delivery pizza. Sarpino’s was our closest option, so we called and chose the most interesting-sounding pizza: Buffalo ranch chicken. And by golly, was it awfully tasty. Perhaps it’s the flavor nuclear bomb of ranch sauce, Buffalo hot sauce, plus tart-spicy-crunchy banana peppers. Or the cheese blend that kept it contained like a gooey protective blanket. My only addendum to the pizza was throwing it in the toaster oven for two minutes — its default crispness is one level too pliable for me. I suppose I can’t totally avoid being a pretentious food snob.

Xi'an Cuisine, a faintly rank Chinatown hole-in-the-wall my North Shore relatives would never step foot in, is the type of restaurant I adore: a faintly rank Chinatown hole-in-the-wall my North Shore relatives would never step foot in.

It's a Chinese restaurant that has never seen a chicken kung pao'd or a cookie prognosticate fortunes. It does, however, have a TV broadcasting patriotic concerts to an audience of Chinese military officers. It serves lamb intestine soup and marinated chicken gizzards. It probably can't accommodate your gluten intolerance.

My God, I love this place.

Most other Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood aim to appease all and offend none, so they feature 200-plus dishes on the menu. Typically these restaurants cook Cantonese food, dishes like fried rice or sweet and sour pork that most Americans recognize as Chinese. (That term, by the way, is about as nonspecific as ordering North American food.)

It’s been nearly five months since we saw the last of Doug Sohn, and the insane lines of customers leading up to the final days of Hot Doug’s. One day on an overcast October Friday, customers camped out on the corner of Roscoe and California for one last taste of duck fat fries and foie gras sausage. The next day, a distant memory.

So consider this the biggest comeback since the new Harper Lee novel was announced: Doug Sohn will be serving his hot dogs one more time on May 16.

That Saturday, Paulina Meat Market (3501 N. Lincoln Ave.) will put on a Hot Doug’s Appreciation Day, in which the Lakeview butcher will serve and sell the sausages they produced for Sohn’s restaurant. (Paulina produced eight or so sausages when Sohn had his restaurant.) They plan on having a grill outside, serving a handful of sandwiches that Sohn made famous. And yes, Sohn will be there, shaking hands and kissing babies.